Huckabee’s Admonition Not to Demonize Obama Will Fall on Deaf Ears
Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Former Republican Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee sternly warned the GOP that demonizing Barack Obama won’t work and it would be a big blunder to even try. Huckabee issued the warning because he’s worried that in going negative against Obama the GOP risks voter backlash. Obama’s rival John McCain agrees. He has repeatedly pledged that his campaign will be clean.
McCain’s clean campaign vow and Huckabee’s warning against going negative won’t mean much too some GOP-connected 527 independent expenditure committees (uncharitably hit squads). Under an IRS loophole independent expenditure committees can get funds from any source with no limit. They can spend the money pretty much anyway they want. The instant it became clear that Obama would likely get the Democratic nod a few independent committees swung into action. They ran campaign ads in a couple of primary states knocking him for his tie to his controversial former pastor Jeremiah Wright and questioned his patriotism. When things really heat up in the fall, the committees will have a mini-Fort Knox storehouse of privately funneled dollars to slam Obama on any and every big, petty, and almost always personal attack, issue they choose. Other than publicly disavowing any of the digs that hit Obama below the belt, McCain can’t do anything about them.
The question, though, is does demonizing a candidate really work? The two best known examples are the Willie Horton hit against Democratic presidential contender Michael Dukakis in 1988 and the Swift Boat blindside of Democratic presidential contender John Kerry in 2004. One stoked the fears of crime (Dukakis). The other planted doubts about character (Kerry). In both instances, they worked.
Even without these extreme cases, there’s evidence that going negative can work. Though surveys show that the overwhelming majority of voters abhor personal smears against candidates and are turned off by them, far too many voters also can be influenced by the negative stuff they hear about a candidate. The trick to implant the negative belief is that the ads must be directly linked to the candidate’s political position on the issues, style or even personality. In April the GOP-connected Legacy Committee loudly announced that it planned to hammer Obama as being soft on crime in attack ads in several states.
The committee tied this softer version of the Horton attack on him directly to his vote in the Illinois state legislature against expanding the death penalty for gang related murders. The law was superfluous and political pandering since there were already tough laws on the books that proscribed the death penalty for these types of atrocious crimes. And Obama has publicly stated his support of the death penalty for certain “heinous” crimes including gang related murders.
Yet, Obama’s vote, and the fact that he’s a liberal Democrat, gave the hit committee just enough of a hook to hinge their ad on and hope that the soft on crime tag on him would stick. In the fall, the committees almost certainly will dredge up some of the old stuff about Wright, Obama’s youthful self-admitted drug use, and financial dealings with convicted Chicago financier Tony Rezko They will once more mangle out of context, or flat out manufactured, quips by his wife Michelle about racial matters.
The more highbrow committees will work him over as being too liberal and too soft on national security concerns (with more subtle digs at his patriotism). Then there's the inexperience label that Obama's been saddled with from the start of his campaign. That will be tossed out repeatedly with the hope that it will imprint him as a greenhorn who will bumble and stumble on policy issues if entrusted with the highest office; in other words a Democratic version of Bush.
The one potential hit issue that the committees will tread gingerly on is race. It has derailed a few black candidates in past elections that were thought to be shoo-in winners in head to head contests with white opponents. But though race was brought up with Michelle, it won’t be used against him. It’s simply too sensitive and risky a ploy and would likely backfire anyway. Obama has not made an issue of race. Indeed, the appeal of his candidacy has been its all inclusive message. The majority of voters would likely be outraged if race was made an issue.


Obama and McCain have on occasion talked about reining in the 527 committees. In part they want to do it to make sure they control the themes and message of their campaigns, and in part to make sure that donor dollars flow directly from their supporters to their campaigns. But both also know how the rules of campaign spending work. One rule is that anyone can form an expenditure committee, raise funds, and spend the money pretty much the way they want.
Huckabee then can admonish the hit committees not to demonize Obama all he wants. Unfortunately, his admonition will fall on deaf ears.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008).

The Silly Debate Over Whether Obama is Black or Mixed Race
Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Presumptive Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama gave the best answer to the question whether he’s black, mixed race or something in between. He recently told a Chicago fundraiser crowd that to some he wasn’t black enough, and he then promptly added
that others say he might be too black. He’s right, the knock against him has either been that he is too black or not black enough, not that he is too mixed race or not mixed race enough. Despite his occasional references to his white mother and grandmother, Obama by his own admission has never seen himself as anything other than being black. He says it has been that way since he was 12. It’s that way for those whites who flatly say that they won’t vote for him because he’s black. His Democratic primary losses to Hillary Clinton in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Kentucky showed there are legions of white voters who feel that race does matter to them. Few have said that they oppose him because he’s mixed race.
Yet, the silly debate continues to rage over whether Obama is the black presidential candidate or the multi racial candidate. The debate is even sillier when one considers that science has long since debunked the notion of a pure racial type. In America, race has never been a scientific or genealogical designation, but a political and social designation. Put bluntly, anyone with the faintest trace of African ancestry was and still is considered black, and treated accordingly. Their part white ancestry doesn’t give them a pass from taxis refusing to stop for them, clerks following them in department stores, from being racial profiled by police on street corner stops, from landlords refusing to show them an apartment, or being denied a promotion. The mixed race designation doesn’t magically make disappear the countless other racial sleights and indignities that are tormenting reminders that race still does matter, and matter a lot to many Americans.
Indeed, from the moment that Obama tossed his hat in the presidential rink a year ago, the mantra of the press and the public has been, “Is America ready for a black president?” Not “Is America ready for a mixed race president?” The equally incessant mantra is that Obama if elected will make history as America’s first black president not the first mixed race president.
That tells much about the still frozen public attitudes and perceptions about race and politics in America. The deepest part of America’s racial fault has always been and still remains the black and white divide. This has spawned legions of vile but durable racial stereotypes, fears, and antagonisms. Black males have been the special target of the negative typecasting. They’ve routinely been depicted as crime prone, derelict, sexual menaces, and chronic underachievers. There are slightly more than 6 million persons that self-identify themselves as mixed race in America. The number of persons with a black and white parent is a minuscule less that one half of one percent.
By contrast, African-Americans (mixed or not) number more than forty million in America and make up about twelve percent of the population. The designation then of “mixed race” is so new, benign and amorphous it softens racial attitudes and dilutes racial hostility. It carries none of the negative racial baggage that black or African-American does.
This is the big reason that scores of blacks have been frenzied over Obama’s candidacy. They have turned out in record numbers in some primaries and have given his candidacy the greatest boost forward. They have been unabashed in saying that they back him with passion and fervor because he is black. It’s hard to imagine that they’d cheer him with the same passion if he touted himself as a mixed race candidate. The thrill and pride for them is that a black man could beat the racial odds against blacks and scale the political heights.
The stock line is that Obama’s candidacy shows how far America has come in that a black man has a real shot at grabbing the top elected spot in the land. No one says that Obama’s candidacy shows how far America has come in that a mixed race man can win the White House. If Obama does win the presidency the new line will be that it shows not just how far America has come on race (meaning racial attitudes toward blacks), but that America has finally arrived on race (meaning racial attitudes toward blacks). Substituting mixed race for black would not have the same meaning or significance to blacks or whites.
If Obama grabs the White House, he’ll claim it as a triumph for all Americans. Many blacks will claim it as a triumph for them. They’ll both be right.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008).

Obama Assassination Exhibit May Be a Hoax, But Fears of Assassination are Real
Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Hoax, cheap stunt, crank, crackpot, racist, and sick, were the apt terms tossed at so-called artist Yazmany Arboleda for his grotesquely named near exhibit, "The Assassination of Hillary Clinton & The Assassination of Barack Obama, " at a midtown New York store front. Near only because Secret Service agents and NYPD officials quickly moved in and yanked down and carted away the assorted painted nooses and the garish pictures of Obama from the building. The exhibit may have been a crackpot stunt but it did again point to the real fear that legions quietly whisper and openly voice about the danger of physical violence to Obama. This is not a paranoid or false fear.
This year that marks the fortieth anniversary of the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Robert F. Kennedy, and the forty fifth anniversary of JFK’s assassination. The three icons represented the best and brightest in leaders, and stirred the hope and longing of millions for change, and a full throttle fight against poverty and racial injustice. These are the exact qualities that Obama symbolizes to millions. But in some ways the luster on Obama’s star at this stage of his career out shines that of King and the Kennedys. Unlike the Kennedys he’s an African-American. Unlike King he’s the first African-American presidential candidate that could win. And unlike King and the Kennedys he has drawn an instant global throng of admirers who see in him the embodiment of change and a fresh direction for US policy on the war and the easing of global tensions. He’s also seen as a potential president who can put a diverse, humane face on American foreign policy.
But these are also the very same qualities that stir the deep fury, hatred and resentment among a handful of loose screwed malcontents and hate mongers. The thick list of fringe and hate groups as well as the hordes of unbalanced violence prone individuals running loose in America can fill a telephone book. The long history of hate violence in America further is more than enough to raise the antenna on the danger of violence against prominent political figures.

The first troubling hint of this with Obama came virtually from the moment that he announced in February 2007 that he was a presidential candidate. The personal death threats quickly began flooding in to his campaign. Obama had the dubious distinction of being the earliest presidential contender to be assigned Secret Service protection on the campaign trail. That didn’t satisfy some. Mississippi Congressman Bennie Thompson fired off a letter to Secret Service officials practically demanding that the Secret Service provide all the resources and personnel it could to insure Obama and the other presidential candidates safety. Thompson didn’t say exactly what prompted him to fret over whether the Secret Service was doing all it could to protect the candidates, but almost certainly Thompson heard the whispers and nervous questions from his constituents about Obama’s safety.
As the crowds grew bigger at Obama rallies and his public visibility grew even greater, the Secret Service increased the number of agents assigned to guard him. The ramp up in protection was a good move. At the same time, Obama campaign aides and volunteers continued to report occasional racial taunts and jibes when they passed out literature and pitched Obama in some areas. This further increased the jitters that Obama was at risk. As the showdown with John McCain heats up in the coming months, the flood of crank, crackpot, and screwball threats that promise murder and mayhem toward Obama almost certainly will continue to pour in. This just as certainly will prompt the Secret Service to tighten security and take even more elaborate measures to insure his safety. The Secret Service, of course, must spare no effort to make sure he’s fully protected.
That won’t totally ease the fears about his safety. But it will show that the government is doing everything humanly possible to insure his safety. That’s especially important given the deep doubt and even paranoid suspicion that some blacks have that shadowy government agencies were knee deep complicit in the assassination of King, and the fervent belief of millions of other Americans that the CIA or other shadowy government agencies were deeply complicit in the killing, if not outright murder of JFK.
Obama was one year old when JFK was killed. He was six years old when King and Kennedy were slain. But he well knows the horrid violent history of America and the very real danger that violence poses to a charismatic presidential candidate who energizes and excites millions and who promises political change and implicitly racial change. He can easily laugh off a phony, self-serving stunt such as an assassination exhibit, but he can’t laugh off the danger to presidents and those who aspire to be presidents of that violence.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008).

Saber rattling the Saudis Won’t Bring Gas Prices Down
Earl Ofari Hutchinson


Predictably, Senate Democrats saber rattle threat to block an arms deal to the Saudis unless it pumps out another million barrels of oil went nowhere. The Saudi rattle is fueled by a mix of anger, frustration, desperation, and most importantly politics. It’s an election year and strapped motorists are screaming at politicians to do something, anything, to give them some gas price relief. But Senate Democrats showpiece gesture was doomed from the start. Even if they meant what they said the Royal Kingdom would simply buy the arms somewhere else. But that’s not necessary anyway. The Kingdom literally has the U. S. over two barrels. The first is the most obvious. About ten percent of the petroleum guzzled daily in the US comes from Saudi Arabia. That’s about fifteen percent of U.S. imports.
It was almost laughable to watch the Saudis throw up their hands in mock resignation when Bush on his two recent visits to the Kingdom asked them to increase production. Short of a U.S. takeover of the Saudi oil fields Bush’s request was simply a political feel good gesture. Bush officials desperately need Saudi oil. In fact, U.S. dependency on Saudi oil is greater now than it was before the 9/11 attacks, and this mocks Bush's claim that the U.S. can and will at least any time soon wean itself off Saudi oil, or dictate to the Saudi's how they should run their government or diplomatic policy.
It’s not just the U.S. that’s in oil hock to the Saudis. Western Europe, China, Japan and India's glutinous appetite for oil continues to grow. The Energy Department estimates that it will take up to 120 million barrels per day by 2025 to satisfy that appetite. Over one-fourth of this added oil will come from the Saudis.
Meanwhile, the U.S. occasionally will talk tough to the Saudis about speeding up democratic reforms, and cracking down on Muslim fundamentalist groups. That's more bluster mostly for media and public consumption.
If anything, Bush’s visits to the Kingdom sent a huge signal that the U.S. will do everything it can to placate the Saudi regime. The reason is simple. The much hoped for new oil sources that could break the U.S. dependency on Saudi oil have not panned out. The rivers of oil the U.S. boasted would flow into the tanks of America's gas-guzzlers after Saddam Hussein was dumped are a pipedream. Post-Saddam Iraq has shown no sign that it can produce the six million barrels projected by 2010. Currently it barely squeezes out two million barrels a day. Nigeria and Russia are mired in corruption and mismanagement, and Venezuela is government non grata to Bush. Libya, even with the softening of relations with the U.S., doesn't have the oil reserves to meet the U.S.'s bloated needs. Its reserves are about one sixth of Saudi Arabia's.
American oil executives have hammered the Bush administration and Congress to scrap environmental and land protections to tap the millions of barrels in oil reserves believed nestled in shale deposits off the coast and in the frozen ground on Alaska's North Slope. Those millions may or may not be there. It will take big improvements in exploration and drilling technology, as well as beating back environmentalists' challenges to determine the real oil potential of the North Slope and the sea.
While the U.S. is the still the world's most rapacious oil user, China and India have come on strong, and are willing to court the Saudi's and pay top dollar for the oil they need to fuel their industrial boom. The Saudi's can and will play both nations off against the U.S. With oil prices smashing new records every day that means billions more in the Saudi coffers.

The second barrel the Saudis have the U.S. over is the always durable and convenient threat of Iran and more Middle East turmoil. The Saudis are still the most dependable and consistent watchdog and Arab counter balance to Iran, and the U.S.’s perennial helpmate to safeguard regional stability. But there’s a Catch 22 in that for the Saudis and the U.S. The Saudi royal family runs the Kingdom as a tight knit, autocracy. It's fair game for both homegrown and foreign Muslim extremists and fundamentalists. A renewed internal insurgency could shake the regime. That could deepen anti-American sentiment in the country, and open the door wide to more terrorist attacks. Even without a Saudi regime shift or change, the anger and hostility toward U.S. policy in Iraq and the U.S.’s rock solid support of Israel, prevent the Saudi government from totally publicly realigning its policies with the U.S. Oil is and always will be the Saudi’s main weapon to keep the U.S. at arms length publicly while embracing it politically to maintain its power, security—and obscene wealth.
The talk by Congress of lawsuits, killing arms deals, and presidential visits and pleadings to the Saudis for oil relief will be just that empty talk; talk that will continue to fall on deaf Saudi ears. The U.S. dependency on Saudi oil will grow even greater, and unfortunately so will gas prices.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008).

The second of two parts:
Pt 1 How McCain Can Win the White House
Pt 2 How Obama Can Win the White House
How Obama Can Win the White House
Earl Ofari Hutchinson

A Pew Research Poll Center Poll in early May found that "inspiring," " fresh," "change," and "visionary" was not the word that voters said best described Obama. The word was "inexperienced." Republican presidential contender John McCain has made this and the boast that he’s the best on national security, the terrorist fight and defense preparedness his attack mantra against Obama.
Obama can parry the attack by turning the table and proclaiming that his lack of national and especially international experience is a positive. That he'll bring fresh ideas and approaches to statecraft that replace the old, tired, and failed polices of recent times. But that’s not enough. He must choose and choose carefully a vice presidential running mate who is every bit the tough guy on national security, the war on terrorism and defense preparedness that McCain claims to be. Then he must convince voters that he will back up his pledge to bring an honorable and workable end to the Iraq war.
But it’s still Bush and the GOP’s domestic fumbles that are potentially his biggest selling point. He must repeatedly remind voters that they should be mad at Bush and the GOP for the bungle of the economy, his draconian tax giveaway to the wealthy and corporate interests, his gut of environmental and civil liberties protections, and his Medicare prescription drug benefit bill that lined the pockets of pharmaceutical companies and eroded Medicare coverage and protections. He must adeptly remind women's groups that the GOP will continue to wage a relentless war against abortion rights. He must remind gay groups that top GOP politicians are staunch opponents of gay marriage, and are likely to continue to fight hard against stronger civil rights protections for gays.
He must make the ringing call by the Democrats for party unity more than a feel-good, politically correct self-assuring call. This means repairing the deep polarization among Democratic voters, or more particularly, the hardliners who backed Clinton and are wary if not hostile to him. He must make an all out effort to convince white blue collar and rural whites that an Obama White House will aggressively battle against soaring gas prices, home foreclosures, job losses, plant closures, the erosion of farm supports and to implement affordable health care and a McCain White House won’t. He must make an equally all out effort to convince Latinos that an Obama White House will just as aggressively fight for immigration reform and affordable health care, and a McCain White House won’t.
Obama must turn the campaign for the White House into a holy crusade among black and Latino voters. The enthusiasm of black voters for Obama and Latino voters for Clinton was sky high in the primaries and the numbers that turned out were near record setting. The bellwether for that was Obama’s smash victory in the South Carolina primary in January. More than a half million Democrats voted. That was nearly twice the Democratic turnout of 2004 and almost 20 percent higher than the Republican vote the week before. Blacks make up more than half of the Democratic vote in the state. In California, Latinos make up nearly 30 percent of the voters and had a higher than average turnout in the Super Tuesday primary in February.
He must make sure that those near record numbers that flooded the polls in the primaries flood the polls in near record or better yet record numbers in the fall election. He must turn part of his campaign into a bully pulpit to speak out on the need for vigilance on voting rights and civil rights protections, the need for tougher and expanded hate crimes laws, and the repeal of the racially skewed mandatory drug laws. He must boldly call for increased funding for underserved inner city schools, and for combating the HIV/AIDS plague, greater funding for minority business, and the appointment of Supreme Court and federal judges committed to protect civil rights and civil liberties.
He risks little in aggressively championing civil rights and going all out to ramp up the black and Latino vote turnout especially in the South. There's little chance that he can break the strong grip Republicans have on white male votes in those states. Polls show they likely will still be McCain’s biggest and most enthusiastic backers in the South.
Finally, Obama must convince a significant number of swing state independent voters that he is the real change alternative to McCain in handling the war, the economy, health care, immigration and energy issues, and is centrist enough to convince them that he is as tough on terrorism and as big an advocate of a strong military as McCain.
That's a tall, but very doable, order but he can win the White House by filling it.

New America Media National Political Writer Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008).

The first of a two parts:
Pt 1 How McCain Can Win the White House
Pt 2 How Obama Can Win the White House

How McCain Can Win the White House
Earl Ofari Hutchinson
In a talk with reporters in Louisiana, Republican presidential contender John McCain implored disgruntled Hillary Democrats to back him. His pitch was I’m the toughest, most knowledgeable and most experienced on national security. The unmistakable inference is that rival Obama is too green, fresh, and untested to gamble with on national security. McCain’s aim was to lop off disgruntled Hillary Democrats. But it also staked out what he must do to win the White House.
The terrorism issue is still a McCain election trump card. Many Americans think there could be a terrorist attack on American soil at some point in the future. Those who think that are susceptible to McCain's pitch that he can best defend the nation's security and with America under mortal danger from a terror attack, that it's risky to change to the Democrats.
This isn’t enough. McCain must duck the economic mess Bush made by pushing his economic plan that calls for lowering the corporate income tax rate, more tax breaks for business, and making Bush’s tax cuts permanent. Though it looks a lot like Bush’s plan, McCain can spin it his way with the standard GOP line that his plan is pro-growth, in contrast to the shop worn tax and spend Democrat’s approach to growth. This still has tremendous reverb with wide segments of American voters.
He can claim that his plan will save homes from foreclosure, spark business growth, and create more jobs. He can remind voters that Reagan economic policies sparked the economic boom of the 1980s and his updated version of supply side economic policies is a mirror reflection of Reagan’s. This gives him the hook he needs to boast that Americans will reap rewards with his economic policies
McCain must openly and subtly stoke middle and working class workers’ disdain for liberal solutions to problems. Only a minority of American voters call themselves liberal. The Republican's repeated smear of the Democrats as tax and spend, liberal big government proponents still strikes a chord with millions of voters.
McCain must contest the Latino vote. His name has been mentioned countless times in the Spanish-language press and most of the time the mention was favorable. Many Latinos look benignly on him because he broke with the GOP’s hardliner stance and backed immigration reform along with Senate Democrats.
McCain doesn’t have to top or even match Bush’s total with Latinos to push the Democrats. All he needs to do is get a quarter of the Latino vote in the key Western swing states of Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico, and that might be more than enough to move the states to the GOP camp—again. Even before Bush’s massive court of Latino voters in 2004, they gave Republicans a quarter of their vote and in some places such as Florida did far better
McCain must stress that the Iraq war is not a totally losing proposition for Americans. A significant percentage still think a change in strategy, tactics, and direction in the war can if not bring victory at least bring a satisfactory peace. McCain will have a parade of generals, defense experts, and the defense industry to help him sell that position to millions of voters.

McCain needs a fractured Democratic Party. Exit polls in the bruising Clinton and Obama Democratic primary battles showed that the bruises are firmly tattooed on some fervent Clinton backers. Nearly a quarter, mostly blue collar, rural, and non-college educated whites, said they would vote for McCain or stay home if the nominee were Obama. And since he is the nominee, if many mean what they say, McCain is the big winner with them.
The historic nomination of an African-American as the Democratic presidential standard bearer is applauded by many publicly but privately it raises doubts even dread among many others. McCain can’t and won’t stoke those racial fears. He doesn’t have to they’re already there and that’s a campaign plus for him.
Then there’s the issue of how many voters turnout for the Democrats and the GOP. Much is made that the Democrats scored near record turnouts in the number of voters and registration in their primaries in the winter of 2008 and that Republicans lagged way behind. Yet, in fairly recent presidential election history there was lower turnout and seemingly less enthusiasm in the Republican primaries in the election battles of Bush Sr. and Reagan. Both were still elected.
The variables that work for McCain against Obama are the war on terror, a victory spin on Iraq, the experience factor, the voter’s inherent fear of an untested candidate, the strong tradition in millions of households of voting for GOP candidates especially among male voters, a bickering, divided Democratic Party, and the X factor of race.
McCain can and will exploit these variables on the campaign trail. He can win the White House with them.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008).

Doing the Right Thing: California's Same Sex Marriage Ruling

Doing the Right Thing: California’s Same Sex Marriage Ruling
By Sikivu Hutchinson

The California Supreme Court’s May 16th ruling legalizing same sex marriages elicited the usual howl of righteous outrage from conservatives, religious mafiosos
and other self-proclaimed traditional family values types. They believe same sex marriages are the devil’s spawn because they circumvent the sacred union of male and female and the Biblical covenant to propagate the human race. Indeed, if the Christian god had wanted gays to reproduce he would have created Adam and Steve instead of Adam and Eve, and presumably made donor insemination and In vitro fertilization less expensive. Of course one of the primary objections to same sex unions is the argument that gays and lesbians cannot raise children with the same level of care and competency as straight couples. According to this view, same sex unions produce children who are hopelessly dysfunctional and more prone to becoming gay themselves. Same sex unions flout traditional family values by violating the most basic rules of God and patriarchy, namely that women and children are property and should honor and obey.

Yet if we were to take inventory of straight offenses in the dominant culture it would seem that “traditional” is domestic abuse, incest, pedophilia, abandonment,
and socializing young straight males to define their masculinity by violent domination of women and other men. Traditional marriage has provided straight masculinity
with a cover from social scrutiny of violent behavior. How many times has the perpetrator of heinous acts of sexual assault been a married man, devoted father and model citizen? In these instances heterosexual men are not deemed universally unfit to raise female children yet for opponents of same sex marriage the immorality of homosexuality automatically invalidates gay and lesbian families.

In Minneapolis public elementary schools an anti-bullying curriculum designed to increase respect and sensitivity for gay, lesbian and transgendered children and their families has recently come under fire from some local parents and community members who’ve criticized it as a form of gay indoctrination. Most of these objections rest on the naïve notion that broaching sexual orientation to elementary kids recklessly introduces sexuality into a context where it didn’t exist before. Yet as our 24/7 tabloid media culture corrupts the last vestiges of childhood innocence, kids are increasingly sexualized, taking their cues on how to be male and female at earlier ages. In the hierarchical world of the elementary playground dress, social group choice and attraction to the opposite sex all mark kids as acceptably male or female. Those who don’t conform to the norms of mainstream gender behavior are labeled tomboys, fags, sissies or worse. And any boy who bucks gender orthodoxy at school by wearing so-called effeminate clothes or showing affection for a male friend may suffer tragic consequences, as did Larry King, the 15 year old openly gay Oxnard middle school student who was murdered by one of his classmates in February.

While the legalization of same sex marriages is certain to be challenged by conservatives with a ballot initiative this November, legal protection may open up new vistas for families no longer forced to hide or justify their loving parental relationships in the face of moral hypocrisy from the traditional family values regime. Let’s hope voters endorse the California Supreme Court’s decision and reject the gender minefield that “non-traditional” families must navigate for basic civil rights.

Sikivu Hutchinson is the editor of blackfemlens.org, a journal of feminist criticism and literature a commentator on KPFK 90.7FM.

Obama’s Latino Dilemma
Earl Ofari Hutchinson

A day before the Puerto Rican primary election, I talked with several Mexican workers and business professionals during a visit to Mexico City. The subject was American presidential politics and the upcoming election. They had only the haziest notion that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama was the frontrunner for the Democratic Party nomination. They knew virtually nothing about his positions on the major issues, especially the hot button issue of immigration reform. They all readily recognized Clinton’s name and thought that if elected she’d do a better job on the immigration question.
Their haziness in knowing that Obama was the odds on favorite to bag the Democratic presidential nomination and even their wariness toward him was not a surprise. Three of the top newspapers on the newsstands in Mexico City, Excelsior, El Universal, and Reforma made only bare mention of the Puerto Rican primary, and only passing mention of the aftermath.
The combination of the familiarity with and like of Clinton by the majority of Latino voters and their still blurred notion of what Obama stands for remains a tormenting dilemma for him and the Democrats. Polls show that he will do well against Republican rival John McCain, but that’s mostly because a majority of Latino voters in Texas, California, New Jersey, and New York are Democrats. These are the states in which Latino voters helped propel Clinton to a decisive win over Obama. In the contest against McCain, Obama’s numbers pale in comparison to what Clinton would do against him.

But even before Clinton’s crushing win over Obama in Puerto Rico there were warning signs that Obama’s Latino dilemma wouldn’t go away. In Nevada in January, Obama got the endorsement of the leaders of the heavily Hispanic Culinary Workers Union. But getting the vote of the rank and file union workers was a far different matter, as the subsequent vote showed. Latino voters, many of them almost certainly members of the culinary union, defied their leaders and their votes made a big difference in Clinton’s victory in the state.
Obama spent months on the campaign trail, gotten non-stop media exposure, the nod of big name Democrats, done a victory romp through a dozen states, and piled up a seeming commanding number of delegates. Yet, exit polls still showed that his numbers didn’t budge much with Latino voters. The later endorsement of one time Democratic presidential contender Bill Richardson and a legion of leading Hispanic union leaders, elected officials, as well as top Latino entertainers still didn’t push Obama’s vote totals up.
A May poll in California showed that Obama would beat John McCain handily. Yet forty percent of Latino voters still said they preferred McCain. This was not a small campaign footnote. Latino voters make up about one quarter of California voters. Their swelling numbers is almost certainly a major reason why McCain announced that he will not write California off even though a GOP presidential contender hasn’t won the state since George Bush Sr. in 1988. The poll was no fluke.
In fact, Obama has marched in the exact opposite direction since the Super Tuesday primaries. Exit polls in state primaries between February and May show that Clinton has appreciably widened her lead among Latino voters over him by nearly six percent.
This poses an even bigger problem for Obama and the Democrats. Political tradition, logic, and numbers dictate that a candidate marching confidently to their party’s nomination should and must have momentum going into the general election battle. The surest way to measure that momentum is by counting the numbers and by gauging the voter demographics. Put simply, the presumed party nominee must increase the gap over their vanquished party rivals for the nomination among the key voter groups they need behind them to win the White House. For the Democrats, those voters are blue collar whites, rural voters, middle class, college educated professionals, middle aged and middle income white women, Jews, and African-Americans.
Increasingly, the most crucial group of all is Latino voters. They now make up one in five Democratic voters, and could put the GOP strongholds, Texas, Nevada, Colorado and swing state Florida, in play for the Democrats. But that’s only if the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee stokes the enthusiasm, passion and allegiance of Latino voters. The standard explanation for Obama’s failure to light the match under them in the early campaign days was that Hispanic voters didn’t know who he was. That explanation won’t fly now.
Obama’s heightened name identification, media boost, energizing change pitch and personal charisma has done absolutely nothing to dispel the mix of wariness, indifference, and outright opposition to him that I heard from Mexican workers and professional in Mexico City. That and the rejection of Obama across all groups of Puerto Rican voters in and outside Puerto Rico, once more points to Obama’s Latino dilemma. That spells big trouble for the Democrats.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008).

White Women are Punishing Obama, Not Oprah
Earl Ofari Hutchinson

What started as a trickle of puzzled queries on Oprah’s message board when she touted Obama in October eventually turned into angry complaints from many white women when she barnstormed for him in January. They raged that America’s long standing reigning queen of daytime talk TV had strayed way over the line. Oprah took note for a good reason. The loudest complaints came from middle-aged and middle class white women. They are the ones who have done as much as any other of Oprah’s longtime regulars to make her fortune and keep her at the top of daytime talk show ratings. They are also the part of the voter segment that has done much to make Hillary Clinton’s political fortunes and keep her competitive with Obama in the slog to the Democratic presidential nomination.

A legion of Oprah’s handlers, show producers, magazine editors, TV moguls, syndicate heads, and media talking heads hotly deny that she’s lost any of her luster because of Obama. Many of her women fans even jump to her defense and lambaste the women critics. Her ratings, cash spigot and superstar image still top that of most of her competitors in the TV business. It’s also true that celebrities who get too political can tick off a lot of their fans. It’s also an undeniable fact that Oprah has slipped in the ratings and the slip can be directly traced to her Obama support.
Within days after she touted Obama, a Gallup poll found that her favorable rating plunged by nearly ten percent and her unfavorable rating climbed by almost the same percent. As criticism mounted after her Obama foray to South Carolina, Oprah read the tea leaves. She hasn’t made a public utterance about Obama since then.
But the issue is not really whether Clinton’s staunch white female supporters are smacking down Oprah. The issue is Obama. He’s opened wide the racial and gender sore between black and white women. In the days just before the South Carolina primary in January, nearly three times more black women said they'd back Clinton over him. The support for Clinton was greatest among lower income, working class black women. They admired Clinton as a woman, mother, and most importantly, many black women saw her as a strong advocate for health care and women's interests. White women, and that’s middle class white women, backed her for pretty much the same reasons at the time.
Immediately after the Obama-Oprah roadshow, complete with shouting, and fawning fans, banks of TV cameras, and non-stop chatter and praise from the pundits, black women made a sharp volte face. Polls show that the overwhelming majority of black women now exuberantly back Obama. Many of the black women before Obama’s surge to the top who praised Hillary for fighting for women’s issues now complain bitterly that she is standing in the way of a black man getting to the White House.
It is more than just Oprah’s halo that stirs the change. For them, it is a matter of pride, accomplishment, and the sense that he fulfills their date with racial history making. Race simply trumps gender. But for older, middle class white women this is not the case. The issue is still gender and women’s interests. Clinton was, and is, still seen as the most informed, effective and passionate advocate for women’s issues. Having the first woman in the top spot in the White House is a matter of pride, accomplishment and the sense that she fulfills their date with gender history making.

The mini-Oprah backlash also tossed an ugly glare on another side of race. While Oprah has never given the faintest hint that her tout and early bankroll of Obama has anything to do with race, and is careful to make it clear that she backs him solely because of his competence and qualifications and that makes him the right presidential stuff. Yet the lurking suspicion is that there is more to it than that and that she is just as thrilled as many other blacks at the thought that an African-American can actually bag the presidency. This is not exactly a play of the race card. But for many skeptical voters, and obviously from the complaints of many of Oprah’s one time devoted white female loyalists, it comes uncomfortably close to a veiled racial motive.
Oprah acknowledged the risk that she ran in cheerleading Obama. In a statement sent to ABCnews.com shortly after the mini-furor broke last year, she walked the thin tightrope between explanation and mollification. She admitted that she might offend some by “stepping out of my pew.” She got it almost right. It’s not that she stepped out of her pew that offends the women that tune her out. It’s stepping into Obama’s.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008).

R. Kelly’s Conviction Will Jingle Cash Registers Even Louder
Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Here’s a bet. Accused child pornographer and sexual panderer, R. Kelly has three albums in the can ready for release. If Kelly is convicted of the multiple counts slapped against him in his Chicago trial, the albums will fly out the can fast and even faster off the store racks. Kelly’s well documented penchant for underage teens, and his boasts and taunts in his songs, topped by the very real possibility that he had sex on the homemade, smutty videotape with a very underage teen, mean little to his legions of devoted fans.

Kelly and a handful of other influential R&B singers and rappers who are rich and famous beyond their wildest fantasies and who brand themselves with a criminal, thuggish image are still very much in commercial vogue. They exult the bad actor life style, thumb their nose at the establishment, and reinforce the sexually rapacious cardboard image of young blacks.

Kelly, and the others, know that the record industry can and will deftly parlay their sexual outlandishness and defiance into millions in record sales. Kelly brashly seized on the commercially prurient relationship he has with the record companies in his last album, “The Champ,” “Point fingers, throw stones, hate me I’m clever enough to know that the industry needs me.”

It does. He owns a mansion and property in Chicago and Florida, was once spoken of in the same breath as Oprah and Michael Jordan among Chicago’s wealthiest black elite.

But in the process, young black artists such as Kelly rekindle the vilest of racial and sexual stereotypes about young black males. Their artistic degradation has had especially dangerous consequences for black women. In Kelly’s case the victims of his sexual vandalism, as witnessed by settlements of other lawsuits against him for having sex with underage teens, were black women. And his sexually odious singles, Feelin on Yo Booty, Bump and Grind, and Your Body’s Callin' were virtual invitations to sexually trash black women.

Black women, especially young black women, have been the victims of that and much more. Homicide now ranks as one of the leading causes of deaths of young black females. A black woman is far more likely to be raped than a white woman, and slightly more likely to be the victim of domestic violence. Their assailants are not white racist cops or Klan nightriders but black males, and if they are a poor black woman, and their alleged assailant happens to be a fawned over rap star, justice will be slow forthcoming, if at all.

The Kelly case is a glaring example of the oft times laxity in how authorities treat crimes against black women. The lewd alleged Kelly sex video was made years ago, yet it took police and prosecutors years to charge him, and six more years for him to get to trial. No charges have been filed against him in the other cases that he subsequently settled, even though sex with a minor is a felony.

Some blacks make things even worse by dredging up a litany of excuses, such as poverty, broken homes, and abuse, to excuse the sexual abuse and the violence by top black male artists. These explanations for the misdeeds of rappers and singers are phony and self-serving. The ones who have landed hard in a court docket are anything but hard-core, dysfunctional, poverty types.

P. Diddy, who predated Kelly as the poster boy for music malevolence, is college educated and hails from a middle-class home; he typifies the fraud that these artists are up-from-the-ghetto, self-made men.

When men such as Kelly commit, or are charged with sexual assaults, they leave a long trail of victims, cast shame and disgrace on themselves and, worst of all, reinforce the notion that young black males are indeed menaces to society.
Kelly seemed to grasp that disastrous fact. In a concert appearance with gospel singer Kirk Franklin he did a tear jerk, kind of sort of self-confessional and declared that he had given up his promiscuous, self-indulgent ways and had embraced Jesus. His Saul on the Road to Damascus epiphany was welcome, but unfortunately it was made a decade ago. And apparently from the sex tape, lawsuits, and the sex laced braggadocio lyrics on some of his songs since then it was a very short lived epiphany.

Kelly has yet to be convicted of any crime. But his possible fall from grace almost certainly won’t mean that his hitherto adoring fans that slavishly elevate him to a demigod perch and put king’s ransom wealth in his bank account will desert him in droves. Informal polls show that many listeners will continue to buy his records, and some blacks have even trotted out the tired claim that he’s another prominent black man victimized by whites. In fact, one fan was unceremoniously hauled out of the courthouse for haranguing the Kelly jurors. This is yet one more sign that Kelly’s ill-gained notoriety is a sure fire guarantee to jingle cash registers no matter what happens in court, or maybe because of what happens in court.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008).

Are the Black Voters Who Wildly Cheer Obama Racist?
Earl Ofari Hutchinson

A question that’s been whispered, grumbled about, and on occasion even angrily shouted out on blogs and chat sites is why is it that the whites who back Hillary Clinton are lambasted as racist, yet the black voters that back Obama in near record numbers aren’t? The question has angrily rolled off more than a few lips in the wake of the steadily firming up racial brick wall that Obama crashed against with legions of white voters in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Kentucky. The charge of a racial double standard started with a few random comments from some white voters who said they wouldn’t vote for Obama because they were turned off by the sight of so many blacks deliriously backing him. This convinced them that blacks backed him solely because he’s black and their only interest was to get one of their own in the White House.
A number of whites in Kentucky and West Virginia almost certainly voted for Clinton not because they believed she’ll be the most able commander -in-chief but simply because the only other choice was Obama. In exit interviews, some flatly said so. Clinton indirectly fed that visceral racism with her disastrous, an ill framed quip that hard working, white Americans back her and not Obama.
There’s little doubt that a top heavy black vote powered Obama’s crushing wins over Clinton in the South, and helped keep him competitive in Ohio and Indiana, the states that he lost. It’s also true that blacks have a special enthusiasm for his campaign that’s fueled by a mix of pride, admiration, accomplishment, and the sense that he can win and make history. He’s also the presidential candidate who they desperately long for to wipe away the horrid taste of the Bush years. But the enthusiasm is also fueled by him being black. In exit polls in North Carolina nearly a quarter of black voters admitted that race was the big factor in motivating them to vote for Obama. This is the sore point for some whites.


But Obama’s color and the pride blacks take in his historic first tell only part of the story of why so many blacks cheer him. Obama is a Democrat, and so are the overwhelming majority of black voters. They have given every Democratic presidential candidate and incumbent since Lyndon Johnson in 1964 a consistent, and at times off the chart, percentage of their votes. They gave Democratic presidential candidates Al Gore and John Kerry nearly ninety percent of their vote, and they were white Democrats. If Obama hadn’t come along, many would have been just as exuberant about Hillary Clinton, and they would have given her as big if not a bigger percent of their vote than Gore or Kerry got. In fact, given the love fest many blacks had with Bill Clinton, at least before Bill’s perceived early campaign racial mud sling at Obama, Clinton still might have gotten a respectable percentage of black votes.
There has never been a reverse Bradley Effect among black voters. That’s
the penchant for some whites to lie to pollsters and interviewers and say that a candidate’s color doesn’t matter only competence and ability. Then in the privacy of the voting booth they vote for a white candidate over a black one. Black voters in contrast have voted party allegiance, and now that they have a candidate who represents their party who happens to be black it’s an easy call to make to support him.
While race, though, is a compelling issue for some blacks, it’s also problematic for Obama, especially if there’s the perception among large numbers of fence sitting independents, and Reagan Democrats that an Obama White House will have a racial tilt.

The hard reality is that black votes alone don’t put candidates in the White House. The votes of white males, especially blue collar white males, do.
Even before the controversy over Jeremiah Wright broke and Obama’s disastrous crack about blue collar whites and their penchant for guns and religion soured many of them toward him, he hadn’t made much headway in bumping up his numbers among them. They make up nearly forty percent of the American electorate. In every election dating back to Reagan’s big wins over the Democrats in the 1980s and since they have been the sure ticket of GOP presidents to the White House. In exit polls, one quarter of Clinton backers said that if Obama is the nominee they’ll vote for McCain or turn into Election Day no-shows.
Here’s the Catch 22. Obama could not have come as far and as fast as he did without the votes and cheers of African-American voters. But for some whites that translates out to reverse racism. It isn’t, but the perception that it is is a two edged sword that will continue to cut at Obama.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008).

Clinton’s Working Class Heroes
By Sikivu Hutchinson

Surrounded by a sea of white faces after her big win in West Virginia, Hillary Clinton’s racial message was abundantly clear—while Obama’s “we are the world” candidacy is fine and dandy for his fantasy world tribe of elite whites, blacks and young folk, she can deliver the heartland and Bubba. Over the past few weeks, Clinton’s repeated evocation of Obama’s alleged failure to win “hard working” white Americans was yet another reminder of her penchant for playing the race card. Hard working white Americans, as distinct from the trust-fund harboring, white-wine sipping, Volvo-driving constituency that catapulted Obama to victory in Iowa, Minnesota and North Dakota, cherish middle-American values like faith, family and the right to bear arms, and rightfully disdain the uppity ways of a big city black politico like Obama. Granted, with its 96% white population West Virginia is certainly a snapshot of red state intractability. According to one exit poll, 20% of whites cited race as a factor in voting for Clinton over Obama and a majority cited the economy as their number one issue in the election. To be sure, entrenched racism poses a significant challenge to Obama’s electability. Clearly, whites who are comfortable enough to disclose their racist views on Obama are in the minority.

In her paeans to white working class sensibilities Clinton played on this sentiment, well aware of how her “my kind of people” rhetoric would go over in small West Virginia towns like Parkersburg. Yet it is important to note that the campaigns of both Al Gore (who won the popular vote) and John Kerry struggled to win swing state white working class votes in 2000 and 2004. Moreover, the states where Obama scored big with white voters are hardly bastions of prosperity; by painting Obama as the other Clinton’s big tent pretense of inclusiveness is exposed as a sham once again.

Clinton’s appeal to white supremacist class consciousness is a preview of Republican tactics in the fall. Implicit in the appeal is the notion that other racial groups, specifically African Americans, are not hard working, represent a political monolith beholden to the welfare state, and are solely defined by race. This image fits squarely with conservative notions of black indolence. The appeal to white supremacist class consciousness implies that those who suffer most from the US’ economic downturn are underemployed or unemployed rural and suburban whites, not people of color who make less on the dollar than do white men and women. When whipping up class sentiment among whites, the reality of the earnings and household income gap that exists between whites and people of color is not one that the Dems (Obama included) have ever truly been willing to address.

In the fading weeks of her campaign, Clinton has proven that she will try and win by any means necessary, displaying the integrity and accountability deficit that Bill Clinton demonstrated during his administration when it came to issues of social justice. If the Democratic National Committee denies Hillary Clinton’s desperate bid to have votes from the discounted Michigan and Florida primaries included, and Obama wins the nomination, he would do well to keep her ease with the Republican playbook in mind when the drumbeat to nominate her to the vice-presidency begins.

Sikivu Hutchinson is editor of blackfemlens.org, a journal of feminist criticism.

The GOP Hit Plan, Smear Obama with the L Word
Earl Ofari Hutchinson
The president of a conservative political action outfit with the amorphous name of Citizens United minced no words. David Bossie flatly said that Obama is now their target. The independent committee has nearly a million dollars in the bank and almost certainly much more to come, and will churn out endless hit pieces on Obama. Bossie ticked off Obama’s connection with former Weather Underground terrorist William Ayers, indicted Chicago financier Tony Rezko, and a revisit of his tie with Jeremiah Wright as fair game to splatter dirt on him.
John McCain and the RNC will disavow the dirty, beneath the belt stuff, that fringe GOP independent committees specialize in. Their hit plan is much simpler. Paint Obama as yet another tax and spend, pro abortion, pro gay rights, and weak on national security Democrat who’s way out of tune with mainstream America.
The L word smear of a Democratic presidential candidate is the oldest, most predictable, and durable page in the GOP playbook. Thomas Dewey slapped it on Democrat Harry Truman. Dwight Eisenhower slapped it on Adlai Stevenson twice. Richard Nixon slapped it on JFK, Hubert Humphrey and George McGovern. Ronald Reagan slapped it on Walter Mondale twice. Bush Sr. slapped it on George Dukakis and tried to slap it on Bill Clinton. Bush Jr. slapped it on Al Gore and John Kerry.
The L word smear has been honed, massaged, tweaked and sprinkled with ad-ons over the years. Soft on communism morphed into soft on terrorism, lax on permissiveness and law and order was retooled as lax on crime. The ad-ons are that Democratic presidential candidates flip flop, are wishy washy, and will be weak commander in chiefs. In the case of Obama, the extra add on is he’s an elitist, and hopelessly inexperienced. McCain banks that the L word ploy will once more be the GOP’s keep the White House ticket.
Obama waves this off and says that voters ultimately won’t look at labels, but at whether a candidate can deliver on the gut issues of the economy, the housing crisis, and ending the war. He’s right up to a point. But politically incendiary labels do inflame emotions and passions and stir visceral deep seated fears and beliefs in many voters. The GOP has masterfully turned liberalism into a dread word, and a dread fear for many voters.
Obama’s relatively liberal voting record on core liberal issues does give the GOP an opening to sow that fear. He got a perfect 100 rating from the NAACP, National Organization for Women, National Education Association, the Children's Defense Fund, the American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees, and the Illinois Environmental Council (during his stint in the Illinois legislature), and the ACLU for his votes on labor, education, the environment, choice, civil rights and civil liberties.
Not surprisingly, Obama bombed badly in the ratings he got from the conservative National Taxpayers Union, National Right to Life, the Gun Owners of America, the NRA, the Federation for Immigration Reform, and the American Conservative Union. These are some of the nation's top conservative advocacy groups, and they reflect the interests and views of millions of voters on immigration, spending, guns, abortion, and military prowess. They are the voters who will also scrutinize his record and his views with a laser eye. They are also the voters that gave Nixon, Reagan, Bush Sr., and Bush Jr., their decisive margin of victory over their Democratic opponents.
In 2004 Kerry tried to parry the L word ploy by trying to out GOP the GOP on their strong point issues of national security and terrorism. It didn’t work. Countless polls showed that the voters repeatedly gave Bush huge percentage margins over Kerry when asked who they thought would do a better job in the anti-terror war. In other words if the election came down solely to a referendum on who best to fight terrorism, Bush would beat him handily. But if it came down to the issue of who would manage the economy better, do better in boosting education, creating more jobs, providing affordable health care, and protecting civil rights and civil liberties, Kerry would have beaten Bush handily.
Nothing has changed. Obama can’t out McCain McCain on the GOP’s trump cards of national security and terrorism. He’s tried to talk and sound tough but it rings hollow against McCain’s tougher and more believable talk on these issues. But if it’s a matter of who does the better job on the economy, and jobs, affordable health care, and a war wind down, voters again consistently say that the Democrats will do it better than the GOP. These issues have been the Democrats trump cards back to the Democrat, Truman, who first beat back the GOP’s L word smear. Obama can do the same but only if he can masterfully play those same cards.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008).

Much More than Race and Wright behind Obama’s Blue Collar Woes
Earl Ofari Hutchinson



A few days before the vote in the Pennsylvania Democratic primary, an audience member at a town hall forum in Scranton shouted at Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama “send them back.” The fellow’s blunt and grating answer cut through Obama’s thoughtful and detailed answer on how he’d deal with immigration reform. A few hours earlier at another forum Obama dealt with the prickly issue of gun control. He gave an equally, thoughtful and detailed answer that straddled the fence between defense of gun ownership and a modified gun control plan. The audience responded with polite but scattered applause. The blunt crack from the audience member on immigration and the modest applause he got from mostly working class whites on the gun issue tells much about why Obama stumbles badly with white workers.

It has little to do with race and disgust over Obama’s tie to Jeremiah Wright. Immigration and gun ownership are economic and cultural litmus test issues for many non-college educated, blue collar white males. They want plain speak not policy wonk nuanced, winded answers that conform to their beliefs and views. Obama has not learned the painful lesson that plain speak answers on their concerns translates to moral clarity on their concerns.



But it’s much more than a failure to grasp the right style and words that cause moderate and liberal Democratic presidential contenders Al Gore, John Kerry and Barack Obama to falter with white male, blue collar workers. Republicans have also played hard on the anger, frustration, and hatred that many of them harbor toward government and the blame they heap for government’s perceived failures on liberal Democrats.

The angry white male was more than a cleverly coined buzz word in the 1990s to describe the fear, frustration, and the sense that males, particularly white males, were losing ground to minorities and women in the workplace, schools, and in society. The trend toward white male poverty and alienation first surfaced in the early 1980s when nearly ten million Americans were added to the poverty rolls and more than half were from white, male-headed families. Two decades later, the number of white men in poverty or among lower income wage earners continued to expand. The estimate was that more one in five white males who voted in the presidential election in 2004 made less than $45,000 in household income.
“Liberals didn’t realize they had a whole constituency of disenfranchised people without rights who were called standard masculine men,” Harvard University social psychologist William Pollack explains. “I’m not saying that all liberal Democrats saw these men as the enemy, but they didn’t see them as the victim — but these men felt more and more victimized.”



The main culprit in the eyes of those blue collar whites that saw themselves as forgotten, and economically strapped victims was always a big, bloated federal government. It tilted unfairly in spending priorities toward social programs to the detriment of head of household male wage earners and taxpayers.

Though the tax cuts that Reagan and later Bush Jr. shoved through Congress benefited the wealthiest taxpayers, they were also the fulfillment of Reagan's promise to deliver mid-America from big government and big spending. It was more than a dream. Reagan delivered on his promise. Reagan cut inflation, boosted employment, and his tough talk on the Soviet Union (“evil empire” plain speak) and terrorism appealed to the simplicity and moral clarity that blue collar workers demanded. Bush Sr., Bush Jr. followed the Reagan script with mid-America. Bill Clinton did too. He broke the GOP White House stranglehold by masterfully hijacking Reagan’s plain speak, emphasis on middle-class pain and the disdain of many blue collar workers for liberals and big government. Hillary delivers a modified version of that message.

The sense of security and economic boost that Reagan and Clinton gave to blue collar whites stands in sharp contrast to their feeling that Democrats refuse to offer much that will make any substantial changes in their lives. And that they fail miserably to deliver even on the symbolic promises they do make to them.

During the 2004 Democratic primaries, short term Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean made a clumsy, off-the cuff quip that the Democrats must grab a bigger share of the Confederate flag-waving, pick-up truck, gun rack-displaying, white male vote to win. That brought a howl of protest from some Democrats and charges that Dean was a closet bigot from the other Democratic presidential contenders. A contrite Dean backpedaled fast, did his racial mea culpa, and promised to zip his lip on the flag and kowtowing to Southern white guys.

Dean was right. But the rage at him from other Democrats also reinforced the deep suspicion of white blue collar males that the Democratic Party is a hopeless captive of special interests, i.e. minorities, gays, and women, and that white men especially are persona non grata in the party.

So it’s much too simple to say that race and Wright are the big reasons for Obama’s blue collar woes. Gore and Kerry had the same woes. And it had nothing to do with race, let alone with Wright.
Much More than Race and Wright behind Obama’s Blue Collar Woes
Earl Ofari Hutchinson

A few days before the vote in the Pennsylvania Democratic primary, an audience member at a town hall forum in Scranton shouted at Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama “send them back.” The fellow’s blunt and grating answer cut through Obama’s thoughtful and detailed answer on how he’d deal with immigration reform. A few hours earlier at another forum Obama dealt with the prickly issue of gun control. He gave an equally, thoughtful and detailed answer that straddled the fence between defense of gun ownership and a modified gun control plan. The audience responded with polite but scattered applause. The blunt crack from the audience member on immigration and the modest applause he got from mostly working class whites on the gun issue tells much about why Obama stumbles badly with white workers.
It has little to do with race and disgust over Obama’s tie to Jeremiah Wright. Immigration and gun ownership are economic and cultural litmus test issues for many non-college educated, blue collar white males. They want plain speak not policy wonk nuanced, winded answers that conform to their beliefs and views. Obama has not learned the painful lesson that plain speak answers on their concerns translates to moral clarity on their concerns.

But it’s much more than a failure to grasp the right style and words that cause moderate and liberal Democratic presidential contenders Al Gore, John Kerry and Barack Obama to falter with white male, blue collar workers. Republicans have also played hard on the anger, frustration, and hatred that many of them harbor toward government and the blame they heap for government’s perceived failures on liberal Democrats.
The angry white male was more than a cleverly coined buzz word in the 1990s to describe the fear, frustration, and the sense that males, particularly white males, were losing ground to minorities and women in the workplace, schools, and in society. The trend toward white male poverty and alienation first surfaced in the early 1980s when nearly ten million Americans were added to the poverty rolls and more than half were from white, male-headed families. Two decades later, the number of white men in poverty or among lower income wage earners continued to expand. The estimate was that more one in five white males who voted in the presidential election in 2004 made less than $45,000 in household income.
“Liberals didn’t realize they had a whole constituency of disenfranchised people without rights who were called standard masculine men,” Harvard University social psychologist William Pollack explains. “I’m not saying that all liberal Democrats saw these men as the enemy, but they didn’t see them as the victim — but these men felt more and more victimized.”

The main culprit in the eyes of those blue collar whites that saw themselves as forgotten, and economically strapped victims was always a big, bloated federal government. It tilted unfairly in spending priorities toward social programs to the detriment of head of household male wage earners and taxpayers.
Though the tax cuts that Reagan and later Bush Jr. shoved through Congress benefited the wealthiest taxpayers, they were also the fulfillment of Reagan's promise to deliver mid-America from big government and big spending. It was more than a dream. Reagan delivered on his promise. Reagan cut inflation, boosted employment, and his tough talk on the Soviet Union (“evil empire” plain speak) and terrorism appealed to the simplicity and moral clarity that blue collar workers demanded. Bush Sr., Bush Jr. followed the Reagan script with mid-America. Bill Clinton did too. He broke the GOP White House stranglehold by masterfully hijacking Reagan’s plain speak, emphasis on middle-class pain and the disdain of many blue collar workers for liberals and big government. Hillary delivers a modified version of that message.
The sense of security and economic boost that Reagan and Clinton gave to blue collar whites stands in sharp contrast to their feeling that Democrats refuse to offer much that will make any substantial changes in their lives. And that they fail miserably to deliver even on the symbolic promises they do make to them.
During the 2004 Democratic primaries, short term Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean made a clumsy, off-the cuff quip that the Democrats must grab a bigger share of the Confederate flag-waving, pick-up truck, gun rack-displaying, white male vote to win. That brought a howl of protest from some Democrats and charges that Dean was a closet bigot from the other Democratic presidential contenders. A contrite Dean backpedaled fast, did his racial mea culpa, and promised to zip his lip on the flag and kowtowing to Southern white guys.
Dean was right. But the rage at him from other Democrats also reinforced the deep suspicion of white blue collar males that the Democratic Party is a hopeless captive of special interests, i.e. minorities, gays, and women, and that white men especially are persona non grata in the party.
So it’s much too simple to say that race and Wright are the big reasons for Obama’s blue collar woes. Gore and Kerry had the same woes. And it had nothing to do with race, let alone with Wright.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008).

Superdelegates Must Tell Color of Change What it can do with its Silly Vote for Obama Petition
Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Color of Change which presumptuously bills itself as the premier national grassroots organization is the latest to jump into bully the super delegates for Obama game. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, DNC Chair Howard Dean tried their hand at it and failed. Now Color of Change says it will urge the alleged legions of activists it claims to speak for to petition and flood Pelosi, Reid, and Dean with letters demanding that they stop Clinton from hijacking the nomination.
Reid, Pelosi, and Dean should toss this silly petition and their letters in the can. Here’s why. The group claims that Clinton thumbs her nose at blacks, plays the race card (figure that contradiction out), sows divisions, and disenfranchises millions of voters. She also, they assert, falsely says that the Democratic race is a tie. This thwarts the will of the pledged delegates who overwhelmingly back Obama. These are all self-serving myths.
The assumption that all blacks scream with one voice for Obama is foolish, arrogant, and racially myopic. In some states, mostly the South, blacks have voted ninety percent for Obama. But they also voted in nearly the same high percentage for white Democratic presidential candidates Al Gore and John Kerry. Overall Clinton nets about one in five black voters. The Congressional Black Caucus remains split between Clinton and Obama. There are hundreds of prominent black state and local officials from New York governor David Patterson to the former chair of the California Legislative Black Caucus Mervyn Dymally that back Clinton. There are packs of black personalities, celebrities, business and professional persons that support Clinton.
Even if all black voters backed Obama, the black vote is only one of several crucial vote demographics in the Democratic fold. The Democrat’s hope to bag the presidency hardly hangs solely on the wishes of black voters.
Color of Change’s claim that a vote for Clinton disenfranchises millions is even more ludicrous. It ignores the nearly two million voters in Florida who overwhelmingly voted for Clinton and now because of a clueless and bungling DNC chair Dean they will likely remain disenfranchised. It also erases the millions of white, blue collar, rural, Latino, older white females (and a not inconsiderable number of black females), and Jewish voters who powered Clinton to big state and swing state victories. Without their vote neither Obama nor Clinton have a prayer of raising their hand in January at the presidential inauguration. Nearly one quarter of these voters are adamant that if Obama is the nominee they will vote for McCain or stay home. They apparently don’t count either.
Color of Change says that the Clinton/Dean claim of a tie in the popular vote is dead wrong. They’re right. Clinton is ahead. Her total: 15,112,000 votes. Obama’s total: 14,993,000 votes.
The group charges that Obama has trounced Clinton in the number of pledged delegates. This is another myth. He has a bare eight percentage point lead over her in pledged delegates. If the Democratic primaries were winner take all as is the GOP’s, Clinton would be decisively ahead of Obama in pledged delegates. Even with the Democrats confusing, shoot-themselves-in-the foot proportional system, count Florida for Clinton and she’s ahead of Obama in the number of pledged delegates. A solid win in Indiana, West Virginia, and Kentucky, (North Carolina is suddenly very much in play for Clinton) and she’ll be ahead or in striking distance of him in the number of pledged delegates.
Color of Change scoffs at Clinton’s claim of electability. But the magic number to win the White House is 270 electoral votes. To get those votes, a Democratic presidential nominee must beat McCain in a majority of the 15 key battleground states. Clinton won 9 battleground states in the primaries. They hold 116 electoral votes. The 6 battleground states Obama won hold 54 electoral votes.
If Clinton wins the 15 solid Democratic states and the 9 battleground states, she wins the presidency with a comfortable 312 electoral vote. If Obama wins the 15 solid Democratic states and his 6 battleground states, he winds up with 250 electoral votes, and loses the presidency.


In late April, polls in the three most crucial battleground states, Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Clinton beats McCain by nearly 10 percentage points. Obama either trails is slightly behind or is only marginally ahead of McCain in those states. Clinton is competitive or outright beats McCain by corralling white blue collar, and rural voters. But Color of Change doesn’t give a hoot about them.
When Reid, Pelosi and Dean tried to bully the super delegates to make a down and dirty final decision most refused. Their job is to back the Democrat who can win. They must do their job again and tell Color of Change what it can do with its browbeating petition and letters.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008).



.

Obama, Not Wright, Is Obama’s Worst Enemy
Earl Ofari Hutchinson



Whoever on Team Obama keeps feeding into Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s seeming compulsive need to speak out on the Reverend Jeremiah Wright should get the swift boot. When Wright went on his latest public and media tear, Obama should have simply issued a statement saying this: Wright is no longer my pastor. And as I have said repeatedly, his views do not reflect mine, and then move on.

But no, Obama’s Wright compulsion drove him to deliver a defensive and apologetic so-called race speech in which Wright was the centerpiece. Next, he denounced Wright’s views in an interview. Now he holds a halting, stumbling, anguished voice press conference to denounce Wright again. Here’s the effect of all this. He’s given a slew of gossipy, media talking heads more salacious grist for the gossip and rumor mill about Wright, the church and Obama’s long term relationship with both.

He’s elevated Wright from a relatively obscure, local preacher to a nationally known polarizing figure. He’s deepened the suspicions of those who all along felt that he was a closet radical and race panderer. This hurt him with white voters in Ohio and Pennsylvania, and almost certainly it will hurt him in Indiana. It has pecked away at the razor thin lead he had over Clinton among Democrats, and dropped him behind McCain in the general election. (Hillary beats McCain by ten points).

He created clouds of doubt among some of his non-rabid, and non-true believer supporters that maybe it’s time to take a second look at him and his candidacy. He’s given political analysts and pundits boundless ammunition to fire the jibe that maybe he is unelectable. After all, if he bombs with blue collar, rural, and less educated white voters in Ohio, Pennsylvania who are Democrats, what chance does he have of getting a big swatch of the must win independents who fit that same vote demographic in the South, the Midwest and the West to back him in a head to head showdown with McCain? He’s gotten so bogged down with the obsessive need to slam Wright that he’s managed to self-derail his campaign from the issues that should matter to debating Wright on of all things as to whether Wright and the black church as Wright claims are one and the same.



Finally, and worst of all, no matter how much he protests that Wright doesn’t represent him or his thinking, the fact is he sat in his church for nearly two decades, called him a spiritual mentor and family confidant, appointed him to an advisory post in his campaign, and in his so-called race speech refused to disown his two decade experience and relationship with him. This instantly makes his Wright protest sound like the wail of a politician running scared, and who sees the long, arduous, time consuming and patient work he put into building up public trust in him as the nation’s great political hope fast washing down the drain.

But Obama is no different than other inexperienced politicians who get blind-sided by damaging and hurtful allegations and associations. They panic, do their public mea culpas, and hope and pray that it all blows over. It never does. The clouds of doubt remain transfixed in the air of the voter’s minds, and that doubt will always be there with whispers, wisecracks, and raised eyebrows that maybe the politician with a taint who so many put their fervent faith and hope in is not all that he’s cracked up to be.

The more optimistic Obama backers point to Bill Clinton as the best example of a much admired, effective political leader who rebounded from a scandal and attacks and whose popularity ratings soared to the stars. That’s true but there are some big differences. Clinton was a battle tested, second term president, the economy was booming, there were no major foreign policy crises, and millions of supporters including many Republicans saw the GOP assaults on him as nothing more than vindictive partisan politics. That was more than enough for him to ride out the tide.

Obama is hardly Clinton. And the issue that dogged Clinton was sex. The issue that dogs Obama is race. That in any season is perennially for a politician, especially a black politician, their worst nightmare. That’s even truer for Obama who has worked tirelessly to sell white voters on his non-racial message of unity, harmony, and hope.

Obama then must understand two things. Wright isn’t going away. His ego and a press insatiable for any inflammatory Wright quip will insure that. If that’s so then Obama should button it up on Wright. Anything else he says on him will further insure that Obama not Wright is Obama’s worst enemy.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008).

Vote Demographics Spells Much Bigger Trouble for Obama than Pennsylvania Loss
Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Barack Obama’s decisive Pennsylvania loss to Hillary Clinton was predictable and inevitable. Obama pretty much confirmed that when he tossed in the towel and spent the crucial countdown hours to the primary vote at a fundraiser in Indiana. But the loss in that state is the least of Obama’s troubles.
But let’s start with Pennsylvania. More than eighty percent of the voters there are white, a significant percent are blue collar, rural, less educated, and less financially well-endowed. Many are gun owners and devoutly religious. The Democrats among them are solid Clinton backers. Pennsylvania voters mirror the voter profile in a majority of states.
One in five Pennsylvania voters made it clear that race was a factor in their vote. Translated; they would not vote for an African-American for president, no matter how fresh, articulate and race neutral his pitch. If Obama hadn’t gotten ninety percent of the black vote mostly in Philadelphia and other urban spots in the state, Clinton would have demolished him.
Obama’s one big and consistent trump card has been the youth vote, those aged 18-29. They are voting. And the overwhelming majority of them are voting for Obama. But Pennsylvania showed the problem in banking on them to propel a candidate to victory. There simply aren’t enough of them. They make up slightly more than 10 percent of the vote in the state. Their number is dwarfed by older voters over age 45 that make up nearly seventy percent of the vote there. Older, white male, rural voters have been the pathway to the White House for GOP presidents since Nixon. In a head to head contest with McCain, Clinton almost certainly wouldn’t beat him out for their vote, but she’d be competitive. Obama wouldn’t be. The highest percentage of young voters is in solid Democrat or Democratic leaning states. In 2004 the youth voter turnout was highest in Minnesota (69%), Wisconsin (63%), Iowa (62%), Maine (59%), and New Hampshire (58%). In Pennsylvania, there was even an ominous note with the youth vote; race sneaked in. Clinton did surprisingly well with white voters under age 30.


The hard numbers and demographics may be less troubling than voter attitudes and that’s Democratic voter attitudes towards Clinton, and especially Obama. They can be summed up in one word: polarization. That polarization has gotten wider and deeper with every swap of a name call, finger point, and character attack by Clinton and Obama on each other. One quarter of Democrats say they will either cross over and vote for McCain or stay home if Obama is the nominee. Fewer Democrats say they will defect if Clinton’s the nominee. Put bluntly, a general would be hard pressed to win a major battle if one quarter of his troop’s desert before the first shot is fired.
The dominant issue for voters is no longer the Iraq war but the economy. Those that are most likely to stampede the polls in anger over a turned South economy are the voters that Clinton best appeals to. In exit polls, voters said that they thought Obama and Clinton would do better than McCain in handling the economy, but more favored Clinton in handling the economic meltdown.
Pennsylvania was a crowning vindication of Clinton’s win the big state strategy. These are the states that are in play for the Democrats and these are the states that will decide ultimately who will sit in the White House. Obama’s wins in the South and West are side show, feel good wins. These are locked down red states. With the exception of Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996, a Democratic presidential candidate has won only one Western state since Lyndon Johnson in 1964.
Four of the states with remaining primaries are textbook examples of the meaningless of a Democratic primary win in these states. The last Democrat to win Indiana was Lyndon Johnson in 1964. The last Democrat to win North Carolina was Jimmy Carter in 1976. Clinton was the last Democrat to win West Virginia. He also broke the Democratic presidential drought in Kentucky with his wins in 1992 and 1996. While it’s true that some of these states have Democratic governors and senators, this means little in a national election. The Democrats that win in these states are independent, self-reliant and conservative. They are the exact opposite of the Obama and even Clinton profile.
There’s one more troubling note for Obama. The majority of voters overall and that includes a significant percentage of Clinton’s backers think that Obama will eventually get the Democratic nomination they aren’t exactly doing handstands at that prospect. More Obama backers say that they will be just as content if Clinton gets the nomination. Fewer Clinton backers say they’ll be content if Obama gets the nomination.
Obama’s Pennsylvania loss does not dampen his chance of eventually getting the Democratic nomination. But the voter demographics that stack up high against him dampen his chance of getting the White House.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008).

The Ethnic Presidency

Sexism is the X Factor for Hillary that McCain and Obama Don’t Have to Worry About
Earl Ofari Hutchinson


Chelsea Clinton is incredibly naïve, incredibly sheltered, incredibly in denial, or maybe a bit of all three. In late March, Hillary Clinton’s daughter told a Young Democrats audience in North Carolina that she was shocked at the nasty things some male (and even female) folk on the campaign trail are saying about her mother such as “Iron my shirts,” and “the nutcracker in your…….” The vulgarities are heaped on top of the hard headed belief of many men and women that a woman just doesn’t have the right stuff to be the nation’s commander in chief.

Chelsea would have gotten a healthy lesson in Sexism 101 if she had glanced at polls, and that includes a CBS News poll taken just a week before her talk, that have consistently shown that far more Americans have a bigger problem voting for a woman for president than an African-American.

The worst part of this is that if any one dared make a racial crack about Barack Obama they’d be pounded into the sand. Yet, blatant sexist and anti-woman remarks are routinely spewed out, often unchallenged, and even cackled at. In the CBS News poll though more said they have heard more racist cracks in the past few months than sexist cracks, they were less likely to be offended by the sexist ones than the racist ones.

The big worry for the Clinton camp is not the sexist inuendoes, wisecracks and even the double standard that gender and race are treated on the campaign trail but how many voters it might scare away from Clinton in a head to head showdown with John McCain. There’s good reason for the scare.

The gender gap was first identified and labeled in the 1980 presidential contest between Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter. That year Reagan got more than a 20 percent bulge in the margin of male votes over Carter. Women voters by contrast split almost evenly down the middle in backing both Reagan and Carter. Men didn’t waver from their support of Reagan during his years in office. Many of the men that backed Reagan made no secret about why they liked him. His reputed toughness, firmness and refusal to compromise on issues of war and peace fit neatly into the often time stereotypical male qualities of professed courage, determination and toughness.

The gender split is always apparent when there’s a crisis such as a brush fire war, a physical conflict, or the threat of a terrorist attack. Even before he took office, pollsters noted that far more women than men openly worried that Reagan would get us into a war. This was not a major concern for men. The divergence between men and women on the issue of war and peace showed up again in even more stark contrast two decades later on the Iraq war. Polls showed gaps of nearly twenty percent between men and women when asked how long they thought American troops should stay in Iraq. Far more women than men said that the troops should be withdrawn as quickly as possible.

The huge spread in male and female views on public policy issues was just as pronounced in the terrorism war. More men than women by nearly 20 percent took a harder stance against nations that they perceive back terrorist groups.
In countless surveys, polls, and anecdotal conversations, women say they are less likely to stay up on political issues than men, and are more likely to vote for a candidate based on personal likes or dislikes than men. When asked what they liked about Clinton, many women reflexively said they liked her toughness. That's generally considered a rough and tumble male quality.

The issues of war, national security, strong defense, and terrorism doesn’t totally explain the constant 15 to 20 percent gender gap between men and women on candidates and issues in elections noted as far back as 1980. Another possible explanation for that is how men and women perceive the messages that male candidates convey and whether they use code words and terms to convey them.

GOP presidential candidates and presidents in past decades have at various times skewered social programs and nakedly played the race card in presidential campaigns beginning with Goldwater in 1964. Since then other Republicans at times artfully stoked male rage with racially charged slogans like "law and order," "crime in the streets," "welfare cheats," and "absentee fathers." Bush's John Wayne frontier brashness, and get tough, bring em' on rhetoric in talking about the Iraq and the war against terrorism was calculatingly geared to appeal to supposed male toughness.
The endemic sexism buried deep in the skulls of many American voters alone won’t sink Clinton. It’s just simply another X factor for Clinton that Obama and McCain don’t have to worry about.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008).